Wednesday 11 July 2007

Transportation


Road transport

Ireland, together with Britain, drives on the left hand side of the road. Because of this the string wheel is on the right. Also in Ireland, people use different signs of the road then the UK. Motorways in Ireland didn't appear till the 1980s. The Naas-Bypass, or M7 motorway (freeway) opened. Ireland today has a wider amount of motorways. These are the following motorways existing in Ireland (not including Northern Ireland):

M1: North Dublin to Newry (just north of border), A1 to Belfast, 97km long
M4: Lucan (West Dublin) until Kinnegad (central Ireland) N4 to Sligo, (northwest Ireland), 55km long
M6: Roots off M4, N6 to Galway (West Ireland), 2km long
M7: Naas (south-west of Dublin) to Mounrath (mid-way between to main N7 destinations),
N7 to Limerick (southwest Ireland), 63 km long
M9: Roots off M7, N9 to Waterford (south-east Ireland), 6km long
M11: Bray (south-east Dublin), N11 to Wexford, (southeast Ireland)
M50: Ring road (beltway) of Dublin. Almost all motorways root off this route. 45 km long. Upgrading to three or four lanes on each side.

Ireland has many more plans for motorway. Ireland's other routes without motorway yet are:
N2: Dublin to Derry ( Northern Ireland), A5 to Derry
N3: Constructing a motorway from Dublin to Kells, which is 40km long. N3 to Ballyshannon (northwest Ireland)
N5: Kinnegad to Westport.
N8: Constructing an M8 which is 120 km long, Dublin to Cork (southern Ireland). Has a small toll road 17.5km long and another which is not tolled and is 15km long.

Even with all these plans, some people say Ireland is one of the worst countries in the world for road construction, but they are improving.


Railways
Ireland has had a long age of railways, probably since the early 1800s. It has railways from Dublin to main cities and main cities to other main cities.

Air
Ireland has about 5 main big airports, and many smaller airports the main airports are Dublin, Belfast, Cork, Shannon, and Knock airports. Also, Ireland's main airlines from Britain, Europe, America, and even Dubai are Aer Lingus, Ryanair and Aer Arran.